123-142

The cavalry-warriors of Lydos

• Τζάχου-Αλεξανδρή,  Όλγα

The Type B amphora (no. 1919) published here was found on Piraeus Street during the excavation of a tomb group that belonged to the cemetery that grew up along the road linking the Eriai Gate and Kolonos. It has a height of 0.585 m. The vase had been mended in antiquity with fourteen lead rivets. It was decorated on both sides by a mounted warrior within a metope. On side A. the rider, who is simultaneously leading a second horse, wears a helmet of the Chalcidian type, a breastplate, and greaves, and carries on his back a Boeotian shield with a full-relief emblem of a Silen; his sword is discernible at the loin. His horse has a circular stamp on its buttocks. On side B. the warrior is wearing a Corinthian helmet.The artistic style of the drawing recalls Lydos. The repetition of the same subject on both sides of the vase is one of this painter’s characteristics. But it is chiefly the outline of the horses and the details of head, feet, and reins that are recogniza ble elements of Lydos’s draughtsmanship. The horses are comparable to those in the medallion of the kylix in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (no. 25.78.6) from the end of the artist’s late period. Also, the type of warrior is that which the painter was drawing from his middle period onward, as e.g. the horsemen on the amphora in the National Museum of Naples (no. 81.292), from the end of this period. The full-relief emblem on the warrior’s eight-shaped shield is also found in other works by Lydos, as on the warrior on the inscribed lebes from the Acropolis in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (no. 607) from the artist’s middle period, and on the shield of Enkelados on the kylix in the National Museum of Copenhagen (no. 13966) belonging to his late period.M. Tiverios, in studying and discussing the course of development of Lydos’s art, defines his artistic presence in vase painting as falling between 560 and 535 BC. Taking into consideration the vase s slenderness and its large size, the quality of its outline drawing and the incisions for details, we date the present work towards the end of the artist’s late period, ca. 540 BC.The motif of the mounted warrior is connected with war and demonstrates the city’s embattled state. Horses and riders are considered emblematic, connected with events involving the heroism of members of the cavalry class. The proud horses on both metopes of the amphora from Piraeus Street represented contemporary warriors, perhaps even the owner of the vase himself.

• History and Archaeology

• Αρχαιολογία
• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)
• Archaeology and art

Θα ήθελα να εκφράσω και εδώ τις θερμές ευχαριστίες μου στον καθηγητή Μιχάλη Τιβέριο για το χρόνο που μου διέθεσε να ακούσει τις απορίες μου και για την ανταλλαγή απόψεων σχετικά με το ζωγράφο. Για τις διευκολύνσεις που μου παρασχέθηκαν κατά τη διάρκεια της μελέτης μου στην αποθήκη της Γ' Εφορείας Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων ευχαριστώ την προϊστάμενη της Εφορείας Ν. Διβάρη-Βαλάκου και την αρχαιολόγο Φ. Πασσαδάκη. Οι φωτογραφίες του αγγείου ελήφθησαν από τον αρχαιολόγο φωτογράφο Klaus-Valtin von Eickstedt, τον οποίον ευχαριστώ. Για την παροχή φωτογραφιών έργων του Εθνικού Αρχαιολογικού Μουσείου των Αθηνών ευχαριστώ το διευθυντή του, δόκτορα Ν. Καλτσά και την υπεύθυνη του Φωτογραφικού Αρχείου, αρχαιολόγο Ελένη Μωράτη., Περιέχει εικόνες, συντομογραφίες και βιβλιογραφία, Το άρθρο περιέχεται στο τεύχος: Μέρος Α'-Μελέτες